


To You I Give This Tune

by meanderingsoul



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Episode: s12e19 The Future, Longing, M/M, Mixtape, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, Pining, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 22:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10750920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanderingsoul/pseuds/meanderingsoul
Summary: It was a lucky thing that Cas tended to keep the tape tucked in his pockets rather than just leaving it in the deck like everyone else.





	To You I Give This Tune

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Rain Song by Led Zeppelin because _damn_. Did that mixtape actually happen?

 

It was a lucky thing that Cas tended to keep the tape tucked in his pockets rather than just leaving it in the deck like everyone else.

Apparently it’d gone to Heaven and back now, however that worked. Chemistry had never been Dean’s thing, but apparently getting busted down to particles didn’t mess up the film.

Dean had put it together one night just to keep his hands busy, to keep his brain quiet, spending a couple hours alone just working out the best top ten of Zeppelin, but he could only get it down to 13 tracks. Then he had to reshuffle a few out for other songs just, well just because. So it was after Cas had been going around in his pimp mobile a few months already when Dean finally thwaped the mixtape against his chest, right before Cas was gonna hit the road again, when was leaving.

“Here you go. You can’t just listen to any old crap you find on the radio Cas.”

Cas had made that quiet little snorting noise, more like a huff, the one where he thought something was funny but not enough to laugh. “Music is a gift Dean, universal to life.”

“Yeah yeah, music’s great gotta love it, but you’ve got to have some _taste_ buddy. That right there’s the good stuff.”

Cas held the tape delicately between finger and thumb, like he might break it now that he was angeled up again. “I will take your word for it.”

Dean hadn’t had the time to give it a spare thought the first and then the second, final time Cas had lost his fugly gold car. But later on, one of the times Cas swang back by they’d had an empty enough evening to take a couple beers outside and lay out back of the bunker in the bed of Cas’s fugly new truck.

Dean popped the caps off both beers and lay down on the cool metal with a sigh. Cas could still be talked into drinking fizzy things or black coffee, but not much else these days. Cas took a sip, then twisted around, reached inside the truck cab enough to start the battery and faint music turned on.

Ramble On. Huh.

“Hey, you’ve still got it! Got the tape.”

“Yes. It was in my pocket. Either Lucifer didn’t notice or didn’t think it was of any import.”

Cas laid back down, warm through his suit jacket, near enough for Dean to probably convince him to lay his head down on Dean’s arm instead. But he didn’t. He hadn’t really touched Cas like that in years, since before the Mark really ate him alive, and now it’d been so long he didn’t know how to reach out again. Or if he should.

They’d gone inside when the tape ran out.

Sometimes it still helped, when Cas had gone and evaporated again, or even when they just hadn’t seen him in weeks, when the door to his room down the hall stayed closed and no one perched on the bed with a book to rumple the blankets, it helped knowing at least Cas had those tunes with him. Good ones. The best.

Just not the ones Dean listened to when Cas wasn't around.

When Cas held out the tape, handed it back to him like it was all just over with, like he'd never wanted it at all, it hurt almost as bad as finding out, _again_ , that Cas had heard every last word of Dean praying for him and stayed away.

“It’s a gift. You keep those.”

Well, at least you _tried_.

*

Giving the tape back had seemed like what he should do in this situation. Dean wouldn’t look at him. He’d come back to him with nothing to offer. _Again._

And there was also what Castiel had come here to take. Another betrayal to add to his long list.

“Are these all your favorites?” he’d asked when Dean gave the tape to him years ago, looking at the number 13. It was a strange number to pick, the internet usually listed thing in top 10s, but perhaps Dean had a different purpose.

“Those first two were for a long time, but that’s um most of my favorites, yeah. You gotta have the right tunes for the right job, keeps your head on straight, and if you’re hittin the highways you need some Led Zeppelin.”

Then Dean had squeezed his shoulder tight, looked under the hood of the continental one last time and Castiel hadn’t seen him again for weeks.

He’d actually listened to the tape many times, in both his continental and his truck, alone and once or twice with Hannah, who’d thought the music strange. More often he set his thumb against Dean’s handwriting on the plastic case in his pocket, even in Heaven.

Dean didn’t touch him like he’d used to.

His hands were gentle after Ishim and Ramiel, but there was a distance that hadn’t been there at first years ago, before he’d ever given Dean reason to trap him within holy fire, betrayed his trust. Even after the time spent clawing out from under the weight of Lucifer’s malice in that hospital, after the years in Purgatory, this distance hadn’t been there. Dean had still held him close.

But then Dean had kissed him goodbye one day and never had again.

Castiel didn’t know what move to make. He never knew what to do anymore. He was better at human body language after all these years, at judging gestures and personal space, but perhaps that hadn’t been quite right either. Maybe he'd gotten it wrong again. 

Dean had dozed next to him in the back of his truck months ago, warm and tender and fluttery dark green and Cas had wanted to cradle his face in his hands like he had before. It’d been so long.

But Castiel had failed him in so many ways now.

“You were too busy with, what was it, nothing? What the hell’s wrong with you man?”

The warmth in Dean towards him had not waned, but, perhaps with everything else, everything else Cas had done or not done these last few years, it just wasn’t enough anymore.

When he took the Colt from Dean’s bed he didn’t touch the other pillow.

 


End file.
